I’ve been blogging for four years now (three years “officially”), and I would love to go back to the beginning and start over. I would kick butt. I’m not sure at what, though! But seriously, I’ve learned so much, and I’d love to share some things that I wish I would have known at the beginning. It might help some of you who are new – and if you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be able to relate. Here are the five things I wish I would have known about craft blogging.

Having a blog means less time for crafting. Another way to say it is, “Once you have a blog, you should be deliberate about making time for crafting.” You don’t think that the writing, social media or keeping up with e-mail is going to take over, but it will if you let it. Social media is notorious for sucking up endless hours. So it’s up to you to make sure that it doesn’t (unless you want it to). I absolutely love the writing, so less crafting isn’t that big of a deal for me. Though I still need time to be creative – after all, it’s why I started my blog in the first place.

You might have the strong desire to quit a few times. I hope knowing that you might feel this way a few times over the course of your blogging career makes it easier for you, if it ever comes. Sometimes those feelings mean you should quit. But I encourage you to let those feelings ride for a bit if you have them – and see what happens. For me, it was fleeting because of stress. I truly love what I do, and I’m SO glad I didn’t quit.

Don’t lead a guest post title with the name of the blog. A lot of you probably already know this, but when I started, I didn’t. I used titles such as “Guest Blog by Amy of Mod Podge Rocks” for a long time. For SEO, you should use “Mod Podge Candleholder from Mod Podge Rocks.” Or something along those lines.

Be willing to investigate new forms of social media. There is always going to be something new – for instance, Pinterest. I swept Pinterest under the rug for a long time, and think about how many more followers I could have gotten by starting early. It doesn’t mean you should sign up for every new social media tool, but take some time to investigate the new ones and if it looks decent, start an account.

For any features or guest posts, save the picture to YOUR blog. Don’t just use the HTML code that someone sends you. It’s fine to use for the text, but over the years blogs come and go – you don’t want to have a bunch of guest posts with broken images. Save the images to your server.

As I said, I hope these tips help you. And now, I’m curious – what is one thing that you wished you knew when you started your blog?